


And That Has Made All the Difference

by bottomchanyeol, SuperBlondie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Baekhyun is Not a Nice Person, Blood, Chanyeol is soft boy, Gang AU, Guns, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soulmate AU, please read the tags, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:43:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottomchanyeol/pseuds/bottomchanyeol, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperBlondie/pseuds/SuperBlondie
Summary: Everyone meets their soulmate. It’s a well-known fact.Everyone.Chanyeol just hasn’t met his yet. He imagines meeting them and hearing violins and seeing the light – gunshots and blood will have to do.- This fanwork was written for round 2 of the bottom!Chanyeol fest [2018/19].





	And That Has Made All the Difference

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this story! This was the product of a lot of time and energy and listening to Danger by BTS for 3000 years hahaha. Please please please heed the warnings and the tags! I don’t want you to go into this thinking I’m just tagging as a precaution bc the tags do matter! 
> 
> Anyway, thank you to [Aarushi!](https://twitter.com/AarushiC_18) She is the best beta and I love her very much <3
> 
> If you like it, please leave a kudos and a comment so I can see them and reply to you once my identity is revealed!!

_What the fuck are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?_

He has read those words over and over and over since he first learned how to read. He sees them in his sleep at night, can trace the lines on his skin in the dark. He knows the messy handwriting almost as well as he knows his own, big loops on the ‘y’s and ‘g’s, how it lapses in and out of cursive. Mom said that meant they were probably someone who talked and wrote fast.

Chanyeol talks fast too. Just something they have in common.

What does his handwriting look like on their skin? He writes pretty big; they probably have one sentence taking up their entire forearm. He tried to teach himself to write smaller when he was a sophomore in high school and working with self-esteem issues that threatened to swallow him whole. He wanted to make sure his soulmate wouldn’t be mad at him for taking up their whole arm with his big, scrawly letters. He already took up so much space in the world, it was the least he could do.

 _“They’ll love you and your letters, Chanyeol. You deserve to take up space,”_ Mom said when she found him hunched over his desk in the middle of the night, crying because he couldn’t make his handwriting nice, pretty, _small_ like Yoora’s or Kyungsoo’s. _“You’re so tall because your body needed enough room to hold in all the love. Your soulmate will be glad that they get to show off that love.”_

Chanyeol’s handwriting is smaller now, anyway. Not a lot smaller, but enough that he doesn’t worry about his soulmate having to live with a sleeve of his words. The words on his own skin have changed over time too, becoming neater, a little darker in places like his soulmate puts down too much pressure with their pen.

He doesn’t mind. They’ve just got a lot of passion and focus. And maybe a bit of an anger problem, if the words on his skin are any indication.

Chanyeol had to wear bracelets in school when he was younger to hide the _fuck_ written in extra-dark letters right over the veins of his left wrist. He has no idea what it is he’ll be doing in the future to make his soulmate so mad, but he can see the anger in the pen strokes. They must be kind to be that worried about someone they just met.

He has a few scars from all the stupid shit he used to get into trying to lure his soulmate to him. It didn’t work, of course. They’ll meet when they’re supposed to and not a minute earlier – he has a lot of stories for them now though, how he jumped off his roof with an umbrella and let Sehun and Zitao push him down the hill on their street in a tire.

He imagines meeting his soulmate a lot. At least once a day. He doesn’t mean to, he knows that experts dealing with soulmate-related depression and anxiety say that the best thing to do is live life as normal until they show up. Some have even suggested having romantic relationships before the soulmate shows up. To Chanyeol that sounds like asking for heartache, because those end in heartbreak. Kyungsoo’s parents met their soulmates when Kyungsoo was ten and promised to stay together and ignore their soulmates. A year later and Kyungsoo spent most nights at Chanyeol’s house because his parents were always fighting. _Everyone_ meets their soulmate at some point, why risk ruining other people’s lives by fighting it?

So, Chanyeol has never kissed anyone before, only went on two dates in his entire life, and those were awkward and ended with Jongdae calling him with a fake emergency so he could leave. He lives his life the best he can and waits for his soulmate. But that’s _so_ _hard_. It’s so hard not to when he has these beautiful words on his skin and he knows there’s someone out there for him. How is he supposed to _not_ think about that every day?

Chanyeol has grown up around soulmates, seen that moment when they realize that they just met their other half. It’s hard to see that every single day of his life and not want someone to call his own.

Zitao and Sehun met in kindergarten when Sehun walked over to the new kid who moved in halfway through the school year and didn’t speak much English. _“Hey, you look sad, want some of my cookies?”_

 _“You’re pretty,_ ” Zitao had responded in the few words he knew well. Sehun ran up to Chanyeol with Zitao holding his hand and they showed him their wrists, black letters burning gold and silver.

Chanyeol, being a year older, said they had to get married right away because his parents were soulmates and married, so that was obviously just how things went. Kyungsoo and Jongdae helped him throw a wedding under the old oak tree in the far corner of the playground, ripped up wildflowers for bouquets. The rings were pipe cleaners and Yoora’s stick-on earrings that Chanyeol used to steal and wear. Zitao kissed Sehun right on the lips when Chanyeol gave the thumbs up and the rest was history.

Chanyeol grew up watching Sehun and Zitao together and at first it wasn’t bad. When they were little and Chanyeol thought love and kissing was gross, it didn’t bother him because Sehun and Zitao were best friends but Chanyeol had best friends too. But then they got older and it started to hurt because Chanyeol was gangly and awkward and he wanted that kind of unconditional acceptance; even when Zitao got braces and Sehun’s voice started cracking, they had each other.

And then Jongdae got them all into a bar with a fake IDs right before they graduated high school. Zitao tagged along because everyone thought he was already twenty-one and Sehun came because, well, Zitao was going. Chanyeol watched Jongdae get wasted off his ass and try to shoot his shot with a hot guy a few seats down from him at the bar. _“Hello, good sir, can I kiss your face?”_ Hot Guy turned to look at him and sighed. _“So_ you’re _the reason I’ve had this on my arm for twenty-two years?”_

There was a lot of drunken gay panicking as Jongdae realized he’d found his soulmate and his soulmate realized Jongdae was only eighteen. Minseok, Chanyeol learned later while rubbing Jongdae’s back as he threw up in the gross bar toilet, was very sweet and was finishing his bachelor’s in microbiology at the university Jongdae had been accepted to. _“He’s a handful, isn’t he_ ,” Minseok asked. Chanyeol nodded, because he’s not a liar, and Minseok sighed again. _“At least I’ll never get bored again.”_

So for the past two years, Chanyeol’s friend group has been made up of soulmates and Kyungsoo, who hates his soulmate on principle for the _Or what, short stack?_ on his right wrist.

It’s lonely, being all by himself like that. He’s not alone and he _knows_ he’s not alone. He and Kyungsoo share an apartment and Kyungsoo doesn’t mind if he comes in and asks for platonic cuddling every once in a while. But then everyone will get together and watch a movie and he’ll see some very much _non_ -platonic cuddling going on and it reminds him of how lonely is.

Chanyeol thinks that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he had something else in life to distract him. Like school, or a pet, or a job that didn't wear him out every day and make him wish he had someone to come home to, someone that would cover him in kisses and maybe help rub the ache out of his thighs and calves.

But he doesn’t, and he won't for the foreseeable future. Kyungsoo offered to help with that last thing once, just the massage part, but it got really awkward really fast. So Chanyeol just has to cope and wait it out. No matter how long it takes.

He just has to get through each day one day at a time.

* * *

"I'm leaving for the day," Chanyeol knocks on Kyungsoo's door as he goes. Kyungsoo's probably still asleep, worn out from classes and a shift at the tutoring center, but it's a force of habit. The first person to wake up and leave for the day knocks on the other's door and lets them know they're leaving. It started on Kyungsoo's first day of college and it'll continue until one of them moves out or dies.

They're not really sure which one will come first at this point – not in a morbid way or anything, but because Chanyeol's the first person Kyungsoo actually likes to live with, parents included, and Chanyeol's definitely not going anywhere anytime soon. Not with how his life is going.

Yoora texted him again last night. It’s just more of the same, telling him to call Mom and Dad. There's nothing for him to say anymore. He said everything he had to say before he graduated high school, and again every time he went back home for a holiday or special occasion. His parents made it abundantly clear how they felt about it too, clear enough that he hasn't talked to either of them in almost half a year.

Chanyeol doesn't have the will to argue about it anymore. He's cried enough tears and spent enough nights lying on Kyungsoo's bed and asking if he's the one in the wrong. Kyungsoo assures him he's not. That he has the talent and the will to make a career out of music and there's nothing wrong with wanting to study it in university.

His parents disagree. Mom said she'd be okay if he wanted to minor in it, just something to make him happy while he studied for a _real_ career. Mom and Dad waved that in front of him like a steak in front of a starving dog, saying that they'd help him with college and happily listen to his _little songs_ if he majored in chemistry or accounting or something _responsible._

He's aware that he's being stubborn, but so are they. They're his parents, they're supposed to support him.

"I deserve more than that," Chanyeol whispers to the empty elevator. "I deserve to be supported without the fucking caveats." He rubs at the hot tears that always fall when he thinks about how fucked up his family has become, how he had to hear that Mom and Dad still wished him a happy birthday through Yoora because they couldn't swallow their pride and tell him themselves. He never blocked their numbers, he told them he wouldn't; they could've just sent him a text or something. _Anything_.

The elevator dings when he gets to the ground floor and he pushes it all out of his mind. His job is taxing enough without all of that weighing him down. Besides, Mr. Im is one of his stops on Thursday and if he sees tears he'll invite him in and have him hold Nora until the cat sucks out all the sadness in his body.

It leaves him feeling better, but off schedule; most of his tips, the basis of his income, come from being on-time or early. He can't risk losing the money.

So he wipes away his tears and hops on his bike. There's nothing he can do about it but keep going; that's just what he has to do. He rides through the empty streets and watches as the sun rises higher in the sky. It's the best part of the day, when it's just him and the sunrise and the stray cats watching him from their alleys. Mr. Im is probably going to adopt the tabby on Hilston Street soon.

Maybe he can grab a little bag of treats on the way home for her. Mr. Kim on First Avenue usually gives him a pretty decent tip if he drops off his packages exactly ten minutes early and rent was paid last week so he has a little bit of wiggle room to splurge on something small.

The office is just opening up when he coasts to stop. "Park, you got your schedule for today or do I need to look it up," Heechul is waiting at the window, blowing a bubble with his gum – Xtreme Strawberry flavor because he bought a pack thinking it was watermelon and refuses to buy a new one until he's chewed all the strawberry. Heechul likes to chat on the mornings Chanyeol doesn't have to be at Ms. Choi's by seven and he’s a bit of an oversharer.

"I've got Ms. Choi, Mr. Im, Ms. Kim, the other Ms. Kim, Mr. Lee, Mr. Kim, and the Hong family restaurant, right? Normal Thursday." Chanyeol's worked the same route for nearly a year and a half, he should know his customers by now. "I'll take Ms. Choi, Mr. Im, and the first Ms. Kim's packages now and I'll come back to grab everyone else's at around...noon."

Heechul hasn't said anything about him looking sad so he won't end up spending half an hour petting Nora in Mr. Im's apartment. He might be able to take a little bit of time to rest before he drops off Mr. Kim's packages if he's lucky.

Heechul hands over the three wrapped packages and Chanyeol carefully fits them into the basket on the back of his bike. "See you at noon," Heechul says after popping another bubble and pulling out a magazine. "Hangeng is coming by at like eleven, eleven-thirty so I'll leave your packages up here just in case I'm _busy_ when come by.”

Chanyeol lets out a dry laugh and nods. Another pair of soulmates that he has to watch be happy together. He's only had to actually see them together a few times, but they always talk about each other with a lovesick look in their eyes. He should know better than to let it get to him, but he leaves the office without saying goodbye. Heechul doesn't notice, he's too wrapped up in his magazine and bubblegum and thoughts of his soulmate.

Ms. Choi is his first stop of the day. He pulls up to her front door at exactly seven o'clock like she told him to and gives her the bundle of letters from her pen pals overseas. She gives him five dollars as a tip and sends him on his way.

Mr. Im lives halfway across the city and he skids to a stop outside his apartment building ten minutes early by the grace of back alleys and a string of lucky green lights. Jaebum is already waiting for him outside, dressed in something other than pajamas for once.

"Special occasion?" Chanyeol grabs the wrapped package from his basket goes to hand it to him, but Jaebum is too busy staring up at the sky to notice. "Jaebum? Your package?"

Jaebum startles. "Oh yeah, my bad," he laughs, "still getting used to it all, you know? The world seems different now." Chanyeol has no idea what he's talking about, but it's not his job to pry into other people's lives. He just delivers packages and goes on his way. "I met my soulmate on Monday. We had a new hire at the office and he said it, 'Sir, no disrespect, but you have cat hair all over your clothes.' And all I said back was, 'Huh?' But that's what Jinyoung had on his arm."

Chanyeol's heart drops but he fakes a smile. Aside from Kyungsoo, Jaebum was the only other person he knew that hadn't found their soulmate. He'll be the last one left before he knows it, won't he?

Chanyeol rides the same routes every day while Kyungsoo goes to college and meets new people; he'll be meeting his soulmate any day now. And Chanyeol will go on in his rut, doing the same thing and talking to the same people. He took this job so that he would meet new people, but he rides the same routes and talks to the same people. Before he knows it, he'll be living in that apartment by himself or with some roommate that doesn't know him like Kyungsoo does.

Jaebum finally takes his package and gives Chanyeol a ten-dollar bill. "Jinyoung is gonna move in with me in a few weeks and I think he gets packages too sometimes. I'll make sure we get them delivered through your company. I think you'll like him, Chanyeol, he's a sweetheart."

"Sounds wonderful, Mr. Im." Chanyeol fakes a smile and wishes Jaebum well because Jaebum is the type of person to notice if he doesn’t. He rides off to Ms. Kim's beauty parlor with a heavy heart and frown he can't seem to shake.

Jaebum had mastered the art of living without a soulmate. He was Chanyeol's idol when it came to that kind of thing, but now he's got Jinyoung. It should make Chanyeol feel better because it just reinforces the fact that everyone finds their soulmate eventually. But Chanyeol doesn't have it in him to look on the bright side, not today. Maybe next week he'll be able to hear Jaebum talk about his soulmate and not feel envy and a sour despair in his stomach but today it's just not happening.

Chanyeol focuses on the pavement in front of him. He focuses on the burn of his thighs and the wind blowing through his hair. He makes himself focus on the route to Ms. Kim's salon because it's better than having to think. Ms. Kim takes her weekly shipment of shampoo and hair dye with a smile. Her soulmate tips him seven dollars and sample of blueberry shampoo.

He forces another smile.

His packages for the rest of the day are waiting at Heechul's window at noon. No sign of Heechul or Hangeng. Chanyeol feels a few angry tears leak out and wipes them away with unnecessary ferocity. He shouldn't be upset at other people being happy – he's _not_ upset that other people are happy. He loves other people being happy, He's upset that he's not happy. And then he's more upset because he still feels like an awful person for getting upset at other people living good lives even if that's not really the case.

It's just a bad day.

The other Ms. Kim tips him ten dollars and gives him a little crocheted puppy. "You look like you could use a friend, dear," she says, "Just remember, you only have to live through today once." It's the closest to a real smile he's had all day.

Mr. Lee isn't home so he leaves his package on the stoop behind his umbrella stand, as per instructions. That leaves him with just Mr. Kim's package and the Hong family's letters from Korea. Mr. Kim's official drop-off time is one but he _wants_ them at twelve-fifty.

Chanyeol checks his phone and sighs. Twelve-twenty-five, he has a full twenty-five minutes to ride just a few blocks away. He takes the ride slow, letting himself take the scenic route through the park. He doesn't get this often and it does a lot to make him feel more at peace. He's hot, sweat running down the back of his neck, but he doesn't feel it as much when he can see the squirrels climbing up the trees and the birds perching on the birdbaths.

Mr. Kim is waiting outside of the six-seven-three First Avenue at exactly twelve-fifty. He gives the same half a smile he always does when Chanyeol is on time. "Your packages, sir," Chanyeol says and hands him three small but heavy boxes.

"Thank you, Park." Mr. Kim gives him thirty dollars for punctuality. This is usually the time when Mr. Kim starts walking away, always in a different direction, and Chanyeol rides three blocks over to the Hong family's restaurant. But Mr. Kim doesn't move. "You seem off today. I don't like to pry but you're usually a very upbeat person."

Chanyeol shrugs. It's unusual to talk about himself to any of the customers but Jaebum, but Mr. Kim doesn't seem like the type of person to gossip and Kyungsoo won't be home for a few hours still so he has no one to talk to. "Just soulmate stuff."

"You had a fight with your soulmate?"

He wishes. He really, really wishes. "I haven't found them yet. I'm one of the only people I know that hasn't found their soulmate yet and I guess it's just started to weigh on me."

Mr. Kim raises an eyebrow. "You're twenty, yeah? Listen, you have your whole life to find your soulmate. Life’s way too precious to waste searching for someone that won’t show up until they’re meant to, enjoy life for now and let your soulmate come to you when it's time." Chanyeol's shoulders sag. It's the same advice he's always been given.

Apparently Kyungsoo, the only person he's ever met that is actually afraid to meet their soulmate, is also the only person to understand that he fucking knows he needs to enjoy life as is and that he's not looking for advice but just a little bit of sympathy.

"Thanks, Mr. Kim, I'll make sure to remember that." Chanyeol can hear the bitterness in his own voice. Hopefully Mr. Kim is too busy in his own head to notice.

"If it's bothering you that much, take a road less traveled by. Get a new perspective. It might help you in more ways than you'd think." And then Mr. Kim is walking down the street.

Chanyeol stares after him and lets the advice ring around in his head. It's not bad, actually. There's something he can actually use there and he decides to run with it.

After he drops the letters off at the restaurant, Chanyeol follows the road less traveled by. He normally takes the main streets home. The customers are responsible for letting the company know their packages have been delivered and he's free to go once Joshua takes the letters out of his hands. Chanyeol almost starts down Rhode Road and stops.

He's never taken Layton Street home before but he knows he can. It was the other way listed on his GPS when he planned out his route home the first time. "A new perspective." It's hot and he'd really like to lie on the floor of his air conditioned apartment, but he can't get Mr. Kim's words out of his head. "Taking the road less traveled by. Alright, here we go."

* * *

He’s lost. Turns out that the road less traveled by should be taken when there's a map or GPS handy. He has no idea what road he's on or where in the city he is. He'd stopped paying attention for a second, a few minutes at the most, and suddenly Madison, which was his next left, is nowhere in sight. He considered turning around, but this area of the city doesn't work like the grid system of downtown; he'd just end up getting more lost than he already is.

At first, the buildings remind him of his neighborhood, old stone and cracked stoops from years of wear, and he wonders if he somehow made it home. But the streets here are deserted, nothing like Sixteenth Street. Chanyeol keeps riding, hoping he'll come to an intersection without the street signs ripped off.

The neighborhood gets worse as he rides on. The buildings were well-loved before. The sidewalks were a little dirty and oddly empty, but not bad. He knew people lived there, at least. The houses and apartments are abandoned now. Some have windows busted in, some are boarded up. There are trash cans on their sides with garbage older than Chanyeol spilling out. It gives him the creeps and does absolutely nothing for his mood or his perspective. The sun is only getting hotter on his back and he regrets taking Mr. Kim's advice.

There's an intersection with actual street signs up ahead. Chanyeol pedals faster. And he peddles faster and faster still when he realizes where he is. Fucking Meadow Street, the one place no one in the city wants to be.

Some say the whole neighborhood is haunted, that the fire that burned through the area back in the forties left angry ghosts all over the place. Chanyeol has believed in ghosts since he was twelve, but he's more worried about the fact that Meadow comes on the news at least once every few weeks for a new homicide.

As far as he knows, no homicides on Meadow ever get solved.

Chanyeol doesn't know if he should keep pedaling or turn around. He knows that Meadow lets out to Tenth Street at the end. But where is the end? He doesn't know how long he's been on Meadow or how long it goes on. Things don't work on a grid system here, Meadow could go for thirty blocks for all he knows. Or he could be three blocks away from getting out and turning around would just put him in more danger.

His heart pounds frantically in his chest and he tries to force some calm. It's pretty useless, but there was an attempt, at least.

Chanyeol keeps going. It's like life, the only way out is to keep going. He just has to keep pedaling or else he'll be out here for hours – he _refuses_ to be out on Meadow when the sun goes down.

Two more intersections pass before he sees parked cars in the distance. A line of them on either side of the road in front of more abandoned buildings. He huffs out a sigh of relief and starts coasting. They're the first cars he's seen since he looked up and realized he missed his turn onto Madison. They're nice cars too, on one side of the road at least, the other side looks like they've been through some rough times. It's not Chanyeol's place to judge other people's car though; they're the sign that he's going to get out of this mess. He gives a few more hard pedals to get him past the cars and relaxes.

And then the gunfire starts.

When the first shot goes off, Chanyeol startles and takes a few seconds to figure out what the sound is. He's never fired a gun in his life, never been around a real gun. All he knows is that it’s _loud_. By the time he figures out what the sound is there are already more shots going off. There are people on either side of the street, popping in and out of the cover of the cars, shooting at each other.

A gang war, Chanyeol is riding straight into a gang war and he's going too fast to stop himself from careening right into the crossfire. Pops go off on either side of him and he's too scared to even think of jumping off his bike and ducking for cover. He's too scared to do anything but shake and let out high-pitched whimpers of fear as he feels a bullet fly past his face.

There's a loud _ting_ as a bullet hits his bike and fucks up his balance, sending him flying onto the asphalt. He slides across the road, breaking most of the fall with his arms by sheer luck and he curls up onto his side, whimpering as the shooting goes on and on.

He doesn't even notice when it finally stops, too scared to think. Not crying is taking every ounce of willpower he has in his body, rational thought or being aware of the world around him is just not fucking possible.

And then he's being thrown onto his back. The back of his head hits first and he hisses in pain. He goes to rub at the sting, but his arm is pinned down by something heavy and painful and his other arm is trapped at an awkward angle under his body. Chanyeol's a little scared to wiggle in case he puts too much pressure on it.

He opens his eyes to the barrel of a gun. "What the fuck are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?"

Chanyeol's mind races. There are a thousand things he wants to say, but panic and something that feels like shock are at the forefront of his mind. He stares at the barrel of the gun pointed at his face and he can't make himself look anywhere else. "Oh my god you've got a real gun!" Then his left wrist starts to burn.

And that is the moment he realizes what's happening. He realizes who he's talking to. His soulmate has a gun to his head and Chanyeol can't really process the fact that there's a gun anymore because his _soulmate_ is here. "It's you," he whispers, "T-the road less traveled by – you're here!"

The gun pointed at his head is gone and Chanyeol blinks up at his soulmate. His soulmate, who is very handsome but does not seem nearly as excited as he is. He swears violently, "You have to be fucking kidding me. Of all the fucking – you had to show up _now?_ ” Someone laughs and Chanyeol looks away from his soulmate to see and his jaw drops.

Mr. Kim laughs and laughs, nearly doubled over. “When I told you take the road less traveled by I didn’t think you’d take _this_ road, kid.” He walks over and shakes his head, leaning in close to Chanyeol’s soulmate to whisper, “I suggest you get him out of here before anyone notices those pretty letters on his arm, boss.”

His soulmate hauls him up with one arm, nodding as Mr. Kim talks to him in hushed whispers. Neither of them pay Chanyeol any attention. It hurts. “Go with Kai,” his soulmate says and pats his cheek. It shouldn’t, but it sends Chanyeol over the fucking moon. “I’ll be with you in a second.”

Mr. Kim grabs his left wrist the second he's close enough, covering up the gold and silver bleeding through what was once black ink. Chanyeol attempts to pry his arm free – he wants to see what his letters look like now that he finally, finally has his soulmate. Mr. Kim doesn't let go though. Chanyeol can't even get the gloved hand to slide down enough for him to see his own wrist.

He looks to his soulmate and frowns when he sees that he's wearing black gloves too, not that his soulmate seems to be interested in Chanyeol's wrist. And then he sees a speck of gold peeking out from the edge of the glove on his left wrist. It's not much, but it's something.

Chanyeol turns to tell his soulmate something, anything. He's waited _twenty years_ for this moment and he just _needs_ to talk to them. He needs something to reassure him that his soulmate knows what they are, that he cares that they're soulmates too. Mr. Kim leads him away to the line of roughed up cars, where more people dressed in black are waiting with guns out. "Wait, Mr. Kim, I just wanna talk to him. Just for a minute. You know – I told you how important soulmates are to me, please," he begs.

Mr. Kim shakes his head and tightens his grip on Chanyeol's arm when he tries to pull free again. "You'll have plenty of time to talk to him later, kid. Just follow me for now and I'll make sure you get all the time you want."

"But-"

"No arguments. Just listen." Mr. Kim looks back at him with a smirk. "And call me Kai for now."

Kai's gaze drops from Chanyeol's face to somewhere past his shoulder and his eyes go wide. He goes to look behind him – a part of him hopes that it's his soulmate telling Kai to let him go, that he'll talk to him for just a second. "Baekhyun, get down," Kai shouts and grabs Chanyeol, wrenching him close and trying to send both of them flying to the side. A gun goes off.

For a long, long second, nothing happens. All three of them are on the ground, lying in silence. Dull pain is radiating up Chanyeol's shoulder from where he landed on the asphalt again, but nothing major. He’s fine – not really, his emotions are all fucked up and he’s pretty sure his hands are shaking too hard for him to even move them. But he’s pretty much physically fine. Kai seems fine too, swearing about idiots with no sense of honor.

“Motherfuckers!” Chanyeol turns his head and feels his heart leap up to his throat as his soulmate pushes himself up off the ground.

There’s no time to process the overwhelming relief that he’s okay, that he’s still here. He feels a little unreal to Chanyeol, like Chanyeol is going to blink and he’ll be gone; Chanyeol doesn’t have the heart to even cope with the _idea_ of that happening, not with the way his heart is pounding in his chest and adrenaline is making his brain fuzz. “He’s okay,” he whispers.

Kai laughs, nothing like Mr. Kim at all. It finally hits Chanyeol that he owes Mr. Kim so, so much for telling him to take the road less travelled by and that the Mr. Kim he knows doesn’t exist. What was in the packages he delivered every Thursday? Chanyeol decides he doesn’t want to know. “Don’t worry, Baekhyun doesn’t die easy. I would know, I’ve pulled a few bullets out of his chest.”

 _Baekhyun._ He’s not entirely sure what’s happening in the world around him, but Baekhyun is his soulmate and that sentence makes him feel grounded. Baekhyun is looking over to him with a concerned frown because he _cares._ Chanyeol can’t stop a shaky, nervous smile from spreading across his face even as Kai is taking his hand and forcing him to give a thumbs-up.

Baekhyun smiles, rolling his eyes. He’s pretty, handsome, pretty handsome. Chanyeol doesn’t know what’s the right word to describe him but the half of a smile on his lips makes something calm spread out from Chanyeol’s chest all the way to his fingertips.

And then Baekhyun turns back to the other side of the street where a group of people are huddled behind the nicer cars, hands up in defeat. One man is standing in front of them all with his gun still pointed at where Chanyeol had been standing, eyes wide in fear. “Come on,” Kai says, “up. Let’s get you behind a car before some other idiot tries to take a shot at you. Shooting civilians, no goddamn honor.”

He takes the hand Kai offers to stand and nearly jumps out of his skin when two more gunshots go off. There’s a scream of pain – Chanyeol’s blood runs cold because it sounds worse than any horror movie he’s _ever_ seen. He turns towards the noise and stops in his tracks. He's seen gang violence in movies and on TV. He's not an idiot, he knows those aren't going to be very accurate representations, but it turns out they got the violence part right. Turns out that his ability to stomach gore on the big screen doesn't transfer over to real life.

The man who had shot at them is on the ground, screaming and clutching at his knees. "Oh," Chanyeol whispers, "oh my god." Kai is pulling him away, telling him to turn back around and forget what he saw, but his gaze falls from the pain on the man's face to his knees. His head goes light, stomach dropping out as nausea crawls up his throat. "Oh my _god._ " There's so much blood. Everything from the knees down is soaked red and spilling into a puddle that's growing larger and larger by the second. He can't see the knees themselves because Baekhyun is standing in just the perfect spot to block him. That's a good thing probably, he's heard close-range gunshot wounds described as _ground meat_ before.

Chanyeol's stomach rolls and he gags, dry heaving as he tries not to imagine raw burger where the man's knees should be. Kai ends up grabbing him around the middle and dragging him behind the line of cars.

"Why would you look?" Kai forces him to sit down and shove his head between his knees. "What idiot hears gunshots and looks _toward_ the sound? Keep breathing, Park, you'll be fine." It doesn't feel like he'll be fine. It feels like he really needs to throw up but can't because his stomach is empty.

Chanyeol stands on shaky legs when he hears Baekhyun start to speak. He's still lightheaded and very much ready to lie down and take a nap, but his heart lurches at Baekhyun's voice and he can't not look for his soulmate. His soulmate, a man who just fucking kneecapped another person like an action movie villain. Gang or not, kneecapping or not, Baekhyun's still his soulmate.

It finally registers that Kai's not holding his wrist anymore and he looks down at Baekhyun's handwriting, glittering silver and gold against his skin. He was right when he thought his soulmate had an anger problem.

Baekhyun has the man he just shot twice at gunpoint, finger on the trigger like he didn't just incapacitate him and he could be a threat. "Give me a good reason not to kill you. I'm being serious, I'm trying to decide whether or not to just get it over with and put you out of your misery."

"I-I don't want to die, Byun, please."

"And yet you shot at me. You shot at me, you shot at my right-hand man, you shot at – well, you probably already knew who you were aiming at, didn't you? Which just made the whole thing even fucking dumber! You actually thought it was a good idea to shoot at him!" Baekhyun turns to look at him and he freezes. The gun is still trained at the man on the ground, but he feels a little like he's backed into a corner with a lion. "Did you like being shot at? And what's your name?"

"I'm – uh – Chanyeol. And I don't...don't think anyone likes being shot at."

Baekhyun smiles razor sharp and winks at him before turning back to the man on the ground. "I think Chanyeol makes a pretty good point, don't you? I know I don't like being shot and I know Kai doesn't either, but it's happened so much that at this point I'm okay with letting you go with a warning to not do it again. Not that you'll ever be able to walk after what I just did your legs."

The man on the ground relaxes. Chanyeol lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Thank you! Thank you so much! I'll never do it – _Ah!_ " Chanyeol jolts with him as Baekhyun kicks him in the foot. The other people across the street, the man's _gang_ who, as far as Chanyeol knows, are supposed to help him, are already backing away and shaking their heads. It feels like he's on the outside looking in again, only it wasn't so scary when it was just him not having a soulmate.

"You didn't let me finish," Baekhyun says, voice almost offended. "If it had just been me and Kai, I'd let you off with a warning. But you shot at Chanyeol and that’s just fucking unacceptable. I _really_ can’t let anyone even think of the _idea_ of shooting at Chanyeol, so I need to make sure that I drive this point home here and now. Kai!" Chanyeol panics when Kai grabs his face, covering his ears and forcing him to look away. He hears the _pop_ anyway. Gunshots are too loud to block out with just hands over his ears. Kai lets go seconds later and Chanyeol can't bring himself to look back.

He just lets his legs slowly give out and slides to the ground. Kai doesn't follow him, but another man crouches down next to him and pats him on the head. He smiles when Chanyeol looks at him and hands him an empty plastic bag. "If you're gonna puke, please do it in this." Chanyeol laughs nervously and tries to count his breaths. They both just saw Baekhyun kill someone and all this man is worried about is Chanyeol throwing up.

"Lee, spread this to the rest of the groups for me, will you? Chanyeol is under my protection – not one of mine, but _mine._ Any action taken against him, including any threats or hints of a threat, will be taken care of _personally_. And I think we'd all rather if I didn't have to step in, yeah? Good, I like the silent nodding, much better than hearing your voice."

Baekhyun's voice gets closer and then Kai is hauling Chanyeol up again. His head swims but he doesn't tip over and that's enough of a win for him. The other man, the only person Chanyeol's ever met that's taller than him, pats him on the back and takes the empty bag from with an eyebrow raised. "I'm not gonna puke." He doesn't think so, at least.

"Lovely," Baekhyun appears at his side and Chanyeol nearly falls over, knees buckling. Baekhyun catches him around the middle and keeps him steady as they walk. "Woah, don't faint either. C'mon, let's get you to the car. That road rash must hurt like a bitch, a little proud you haven't complained about it yet."

Chanyeol looks down at his arms and finally registers the pain. His forearms are bright red and dotted with blood and gravel. How had he missed that?

"Don't think he even noticed it. That was a lot for someone like him to process," Kai gently pulls his hand away when he goes to try and pick the debris out of his arm. "Leave it alone, Chanyeol, we've got a friend who'll take care of it for you. And probably give you something help with the pain so you don't start crying when he pulls out the disinfectant."

Chanyeol blinks fast, trying to think. He knows he's walking away but he can't remember if that's a good thing or not. He met his soulmate, which is awesome and spectacular and honestly one of the few things he's really, really wanted in life. But he doesn't know what he's supposed to do now. He has to go to work tomorrow with fucked up arms and a fucked up bike.

"My bike," he gasps and tries to turn around. That bike was a present for his eighteenth birthday, back when his parents still cared enough to call. That bike is how he does his job. He doesn't have the money to get a new one.

But Baekhyun just shushes him. "Your bike is fucked. It took a few rounds to the frame and the tires; thing's scrap metal now."

"But..." He pauses. It's not just a bike to him. That's a part of his life. It's how he makes his living, what he looks at when he needs to remember that life wasn't always so fucked up. "It was a gift from my parents and I need it for my job." Kai bursts into laughter and Baekhyun swats at him. "What? What is it?"

"Don't worry about it, baby. If your bike is important to you I'll have one of my guys pick it up and bring it by. Kris might be able to fix it." Chanyeol feels a little more settled knowing that his bike isn't going to be left on the side of the road. But also, _baby?_ He feels his ears start to burn at the fact that he, a mostly grown man, was just called _baby_ like he's dainty and fragile and not over six feet tall. He also kind of likes feeling small like that, but he pushes that away.

"Where are we going?" He can't stay out too late, soulmate or no soulmate. Kyungsoo will be worried if it he's not there when he comes home.

Baekhyun squeezes his waist, "To get you taken care of. Wouldn't want my soulmate getting an infection." Chanyeol's heart jumps in his chest and he rubs at the letters on his arm subconsciously. He looks down and Baekhyun is watching him rub over the gold and silver with a little smile.

There are a lot of things flying around in his head – he's not sure if he'll be able to sleep tonight, kept awake by gunshots and the lingering fear and adrenaline that makes it hard to keep his hands steady. Chanyeol's life feels different, like he crossed the border into another world when he rode into the shootout. But Baekhyun is here, and that's his soulmate, and that has to mean something, doesn't it?

* * *

The visit to Baekhyun's friend is short. Yixing is quick and efficient, picking out the debris and dabbing the area with disinfectant, telling Baekhyun to give Chanyeol his hand to squeeze when it hurts. "Do something for your soulmate, Baek. Jongin gave me rundown of what happened on Meadow and it sounds like he’s had a hell of a day. It wouldn’t hurt your reputation to be a little sweet to him."

Yixing gives him whiplash. They had walked in on him stitching up someone's leg and snapping at them to keep still when they winced; apparently, he just hadn't felt like giving them any pain meds. And then when Chanyeol sat down, terrified that his soulmate was going to let a stranger pick at his very painful road rash, Yixing had taken one glance at him and cooed, slipping him a few pain pills and telling Chanyeol to let him know if it hurts too much.

Chanyeol's also reeling from the sudden name changes. Kai told him on the way over as he was slowly coming to terms with how bad his arms hurt to call him Jongin when they're in private. He doesn't understand how one person can have so many names and keep them all straight. Chanyeol sometimes forgets to respond to _Park_ and that's his actual last name. And Kris is actually Yifan according to Yixing, but he never says if it's okay for Chanyeol to call him that. He's glad that Baekhyun is just Baekhyun, at least.

Baekhyun doesn't grab his hand like Yixing tells him to. Instead, he pulls off his gloves and shows Chanyeol his wrists. "Thought this might help keep you distracted." Chanyeol barely hears it. He reaches with the arm not being cleaned and traces his own handwriting on Baekhyun's skin. The silver and gold looks even prettier on Baekhyun. The letters look gigantic on Baekhyun’s arm, _Oh my god you’ve got a real gun_ running in three thick lines starting at the base of his palm.

“You know, I always wondered why you had to include the fact that it was a _real_ gun. Like why would it be fake?”

Chanyeol shrugs and fights down the warmth rushing to his cheeks. “Never seen a real gun before today,” he says, “so I thought maybe it was fake for a second.” Baekhyun laughs like it’s the most precious thing he’s heard, pinching at Chanyeol’s cheek with his still-gloved hand.

Yixing whistles long and low. He’s shaking his head when Chanyeol looks, still focused on pulling out gravel but laughing quietly to himself. “Please never lose that innocence. It’s almost too cute.”

Chanyeol mumbles that he’s not cute. The only people allowed to call him cute are his family and Minseok, because he has become the unofficial mom friend and doesn’t say _cute_ like it’s something demeaning. “You are cute,” Baekhyun grins at him, all handsome and oddly pretty. “Very cute.” Baekhyun can call him cute too, sometimes. He takes Chanyeol’s left wrist and puts it next to his own. The gold and silver start to sparkle and shine and meld together until it looks like the colors are shifting from Baekhyun’s wrist to his own and back again. “Yeah,” Baekhyun grins, “Very, very cute.”

Chanyeol shuts his mouth, not sure when it fell open, and gives in to the blush that feels like it’s covering his entire face.

Jongin comes in just as Yixing is finishing pulling any lingering debris out of Chanyeol’s right arm. The bag he’s carrying smells like heaven and it reminds Chanyeol just how long it’s been since he last ate – which was at least six or seven hours ago. He tracks the paper bag with his eyes until he realizes Jongin is moving it from side to side on purpose to make his head turn.

“Got you a burger and fries,” Jongin tosses the bag onto his lap, “I also got you a shake, but I drank that on the way back. Delivery fee.” Baekhyun swats at Jongin but Chanyeol is too busy trying to unwrap his burger with one hand to even register what Jongin said after ‘burger and fries’. “Hey, chill, the food’s not going anywhere. Don’t you get enough to eat at home?”

Chanyeol pauses, his mouthful of burger shoved into one of his cheeks. “Uh-huh. Just hungry.” He’s also a nervous eater. And he’s pretty fucking nervous right now, barely an hour out from meeting his soulmate and getting shady medical attention from a shady doctor in a shady building downtown.

Yixing gives him a lollipop when he finishes disinfecting Chanyeol’s arms. Turns out that the pain med he had to eat for was just ibuprofen. It hadn’t really done much to ease the pain, but Baekhyun and Yixing bickered about the time Yixing had attempted to take his appendix out without anesthesia so Chanyeol is grateful that he got anything at all.

Chanyeol feels a little mocked by the lollipop. “I’m like twenty, you know. I’m not – not like you guys but I’m not a baby.” He takes the lollipop anyway, because fuck yes candy.

“I’m almost thirty,” Baekhyun says, “and Yixing and Yifan are older than me. You are a baby to us, baby.” Thirty, that was a good eight years older than Chanyeol had guessed. "And you're still shaking."

Chanyeol looks down at his own hands and blinks. He _is_ still shaking. He's not sure how he missed that. Embarrassment tastes bitter on the back of his tongue so he unwraps the sucker and shoves it into his mouth to try and wash it out. It doesn't work all that well, but it's something.

Fingers curl around the back his neck, scratching through his hair. He looks over and his heart stutters in his chest. Baekhyun's just watching him with a smile almost too small to notice, hiding in the corners of his mouth. Chanyeol doesn't even try to stop himself from leaning into the touch. He should probably be attempting to act a little tougher, a little more like he could possibly fit in with people who don't flinch at the sound of someone getting kneecapped. But that's not him. He watches nature documentaries and cries when the prey gets caught _and_ when the prey gets away because that means the predator's going to go hungry.

He likes being comforted – even if he has to shove down the reminder that the hand carding through his hair is covered in metaphorical, and likely literal, blood. That's something for future Chanyeol to think about when he's not in the process of coming down from an adrenaline rush. In this moment, Chanyeol enjoys the attention and how gold and silver drifts lazily between their wrists.

* * *

They leave as soon as Yixing finishes bandaging his arms. "Just rub neosporin on it when you change the bandages and call me if there are any signs of infection. I didn't use pure alcohol because I didn’t want him to start crying and you to get all pissy about it so there's a chance the soap and water missed something."

Baekhyun and Jongin herd him out the door so fast that Chanyeol doesn't even have a chance to ask how he's supposed to wrap his own arms when he goes back to his apartment. Kyungsoo will help him, probably, but Kyungsoo gets a little queasy around wounds and Chanyeol's arms look pretty nasty. He'll have to make do with WikiHow and YouTube unless maybe Baekhyun wouldn't mind him calling and asking for a step-by-step. Chanyeol tries to plan a not awkward way to ask for his soulmate's number and to ask if/when they're going to drop him off at home.

It's almost three when they leave Yixing's building and Kyungsoo gets home at four, four-thirty if he decides to sneak some of the food out of the dining hall for Chanyeol.

He'll freak in that quiet, disturbingly calm way only Kyungsoo does if he comes home and Chanyeol's not home without a text or a note on the kitchen on the counter. So Chanyeol digs his phone out of his pocket after he buckles up.

And the screen is _shattered_.

At first, it seems like a trick of the light because his eyes still aren't used to the tinted windows. The light reflects differently than it normally would and it really could just be a weird side effect of refraction, maybe. Chanyeol's never been a science person. But then the screen doesn't turn on. "Shit shit shit shit," he hisses and taps at the home button furiously.

Baekhyun leans over from his seat with a frown. "What's wrong?"

"My phone won't turn on. It was in my front pocket when I fell – oh my god, it's so fucked. _I'm_ so fucked." He doesn't have the funds to replace his phone, not now. He's been taking such good care of it _because_ he knew he couldn't replace it.

Baekhyun shrugs. Chanyeol feels his nonexistent hackles rise. It's like he doesn't even care that Chanyeol's phone is shattered because he fell off his bike after being _shot at_ in a battle Baekhyun probably started. Then his soulmate is unbuckling his seat-belt and sliding across the backseat. "I've got a few burners at the house if you need to call someone tonight," he says and pats Chanyeol's knee. "Junmyeon probably has a replacement for this phone too. He doesn't like to work on weekends though, but he'll come by Monday with his shit and get you set up. It'll be a new number and a new cell company, but you'd have all your contacts and photos and shit."

Chanyeol deflates in relief. "Thank you."

The hand on his knee slides up to curl around the inside of his thigh as Baekhyun grins. "Of course. How else am I supposed to get ahold of you if you don't have a phone? I don't think Jongin would enjoy having to follow you around so I know where you are." Something about how he phrases it makes the hair on Chanyeol's arms stand on end.

"Like you two are even gonna leave the house for like a week," Jongin laughs from the front seat, "I'm gonna have to sleep on the couch and listen to you be all fluffy and gross." His sleeve slips down his arm and Chanyeol gets a second to read the black letters on his wrist. _Tell me where Park Chanyeol is or..._ He wants to ask, something uncomfortable wriggling around in the back of his head, but it's lost as he registers what Jongin actually said.

"I appreciate the offer to stay with you, I really do, but I have work tomorrow." The air turns tense as Baekhyun's grin slips off his face and Chanyeol feels a little pinned under his stare. "I could probably stay the night tonight, maybe," Chanyeol's voice squeaks out of his throat. "I don't actually have a bike to use anyway and maybe my boss would take being shot at as a reasonable excuse to miss a day. But I can't...can't just stay."

Three stoplights come and go in complete silence. Baekhyun keeps staring with that unreadable face and Jongin doesn't do anything to try and ease the tension.

No one said having a soulmate would be so awkward. Minseok and Jongdae were a little awkward at first because Jongdae was fucking hammered but then Minseok called the next morning after Chanyeol gave him Jongdae's number and they fell together like a married couple, all comfortable and familiar. Chanyeol wonders if he's fucked up somehow. He just can't miss work though, he really can't.

"I wasn't very clear earlier, was I?" Baekhyun sighs and pulls his hand away from Chanyeol's leg. It stings like rejection. Chanyeol is a little confident that Baekhyun likes him in some sort of capacity, at least thinks he's cute, but the loss of physical affection still stings. "Your job – delivery boy, right?"

"Bike courier, technically," Chanyeol mumbles. "Delivery boy is a little rude coming from anyone who isn't a delivery boy." Jongin snorts from the driver's seat and it makes Chanyeol's ears burn.

But Baekhyun softens, just a little. " _Bike courier,_ my bad. That can't continue. You could be anywhere in the city and I'd have no way of knowing where you are or if you're alright. If something happens to you, I might not be able to get to you."

"I have routes I follow. So it's not like I go wherever I want _._ "

"And yet you ended up Meadow, where no company will send a courier. That doesn't sound like you following a route, does it?"

Chanyeol nods, staring uncomfortably at his hands. He can't remember the last time he felt this small, maybe the last time he went home and his parents berated him for wanting to study music. It didn't feel good then and it doesn't feel good now. He can't even find the words to mention that they wouldn't have met today if he hadn't ended up on Meadow.

"Don't pout," Baekhyun thumbs at his lower lip like he's almost amused. "It won't get you anywhere, no matter how cute it is. Yifan has likely already called your company and had your employment terminated, so there's really no point in arguing."

"How am I supposed to pay rent?" Chanyeol tries to keep his breathing even. Rent was paid last week so he has a month to find a new job and he has maybe a month's worth of rent in savings if Kyungsoo brings him food from the dining hall every night. But that'd be a month of only dinner and he can't survive off that. "That's – you can't just do that! I have bills that need to be paid and I _need_ a job to pay those. What the _fuck_ , Baekhyun?"

Baekhyun darts forward, suddenly in his space, and Chanyeol's lungs freeze up. "Firstly, never swear at me again, understand? It's rude and disrespectful and I won't tolerate it, not even from you. I asked if you understood." He nods shakily, heart racing in his chest so fast he's almost afraid it'll give out on him. "Good boy. Secondly, don't worry about money. I'll cover your half of the rent until your lease is up, utilities included."

"I can't just sit around the apartment all day and do nothing." It sounds weak even to his own ears. But he's so focused on breathing and not shaking like a wet chihuahua that he can't find it in him to argue.

Baekhyun settles back after a few tense seconds, the flat, emotionless look in his eyes slipping away as he realizes that Chanyeol's not fighting him on it, not really. Chanyeol feels a little overwhelmed, brain attempting to process the sudden shifts in mood. "No, you can't. You can, however, sit around the house all day doing nothing. I had Junmyeon look up your address while we were at Yixing's and your apartment is out of my territory – not an option. Not up for discussion either, baby."

Chanyeol just turns away, chest filling up with anger he can't let out. He doesn't want Baekhyun to look at him like that again. His mind flashes back to the man on the ground and the sound of Baekhyun's gun going off. Baekhyun wouldn't _shoot_ him or anything – he doesn't think so, at least. It's still not a nice thought.

The rest of the ride passes in silence, only the music on the radio filling the heavy space. Chanyeol turns his face so Baekhyun can't see him and rubs angrily at frustrated tears.

The clock on the dashboard reads four-forty-five when Jongin finally pulls into a driveway of a picture-perfect suburban house in the middle of nowhere. They're on the outskirts of the other side of the city, almost as far away from Chanyeol's apartment as they can get without actually leaving city limits. Jongin gets out the second the car is off, scurrying inside to get away from tension. Chanyeol doesn't blame him; he's in the middle of doing the same thing.

Baekhyun stops him before he can get the door open. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

Chanyeol doesn't know what to say in response. Because he doesn't accept the apology and he sure as hell doesn't forgive him. Soulmates tend to cause big changes, he knows that, but he's never heard of someone's soulmate making them quit their job and move in with them under the guise of _safety_. So he says nothing at all.

* * *

"Hey," Jongin knocks on the door to Chanyeol's room. He still feels a little bad about taking over Jongin's old guest room, but it's hidden under the simmering anger at having his job and apartment ripped out of his hands. He's not very happy with Jongin either; he just let Baekhyun intimidate Chanyeol into compliance and kept driving.

Chanyeol looks up from where he's staring at burner phone Baekhyun had pressed in his hands before disappearing into his own room. He's been trying to work up the energy to call Kyungsoo. It's not just a simple 'I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. Don't worry, I'm fine and I'll explain it all when I come home tomorrow' anymore. He doesn't know when he's going to go home, _if_ he's going to go home. He doesn't know when he's going to see any of his friends again. He has to keep telling himself not to think about that because it makes big, ugly sobs try to climb up his throat.

Jongin looks a little nervous leaning against the door. "You okay, kid? You've been sitting in here for a while." Chanyeol just shrugs, not trusting his own voice. Jongin sighs. "Mind if I come sit with you?" He shrugs again.

Jongin takes it as a yes. The mattress dips with his added weight and an arm settles around his shoulders. "I know it's a lot. Baekhyun was my neighbor when I was a kid and I’ve been his right-hand man since I turned sixteen; so, like, I obviously don't know what it's like to not grow up with it. But Junmyeon met Yifan and Yixing when they were all twenty-four and Yifan and Yixing were already a part of all this, so I saw how hard it was for him to adapt even at how slow Yifan and Yixing were letting him in.

"Can't really understand how you're just dealing with it all at once. But this is the worst of it, I promise. You've already met Yixing and Yifan, seen someone die, and been shot at – oh shit!"

Chanyeol bursts into tears, uncontrollable, body-shaking sobs. It doesn't start out slowly, doesn't give him any warning to try and reign it in. Chanyeol takes a breath in and the exhale comes out ragged and thick with tears. He saw someone _die – because of him_. Chanyeol is the reason someone _died_. That man could've had a family or friends or just a fucking pet that's never going to understand why he isn't coming home. And then if no one checks on that pet it'll die too and that's Chanyeol's fault.

"Chanyeol," Jongin attempts to shush him, rocking him and petting awkwardly at his hair. "Come on, kid, it's okay. It only gets better from here, you know. You met your soulmate today. Remember how sad you were earlier about not meeting your soulmate yet? That's all fixed now so that's a good thing, right?"

He did meet his soulmate. His soulmate, who shot someone in the face and then somehow got him fired and refuses to take him back to his apartment. Chanyeol cries harder, coughing when his throat closes up from the tears.

"God, I'm not meant for this comfort shit. Is there anything that'll make you feel better? Like water or a blanket or something?"

"I-I wanna go ho-ome. I d-don't wanna be h-here."

"Anything _else_?" Jongin sighs when Chanyeol shakes his head. "Maybe I could, like, I dunno, go get your roommate or something? Kidnapping isn't _really_ kidnapping if it's for a good reason. Okay, no kidnapping! Please don't make that noise again, I don't think it's very good for your throat."

And Chanyeol's throat does sting from the angry half-scream. His life is already fucked up, he doesn't want Kyungsoo getting dragged into this too.

"What the fuck is going on? What did you do, Jongin? He was fine when I left!" He's pulled out of Jongin's arms but he curls in on himself before Baekhyun can pull him close. He needs _space_. They're not Kyungsoo or Jongdae or Sehun and he doesn't want anyone else.

Jongin scoffs from somewhere above Chanyeol's head. " _Me?_ I didn't do anything. You’re the one that made him upset." They start to argue, snapping at each other and acting like Chanyeol isn't even there. They have no idea how to help other people – not surprising, seeing as they _kill_ other people.

Chanyeol keeps his face buried in his knees and tries to block out the noise. There are gunshots ringing in his ears and he can't stop hearing the man scream. He shouldn't have taken Jongin's advice this afternoon; he should've just gone home. He'd be two episodes deep in a Netflix binge with Kyungsoo now, probably eating whatever leftovers are stowed away in the fridge. The man who tried to shoot him would still be alive.

Chanyeol's the reason someone's dead. There's a dead body somewhere in the city and it's all because he had to be a little bitch about not having a soulmate.

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun whispers. Chanyeol blinks, only his ragged breathing breaking up the silence. He hadn't even noticed when Baekhyun and Jongin stopped arguing. He looks up and the world is still blurry with tears, but he can see Baekhyun staring at him. Jongin's gone, maybe just out of sight or maybe out of the room. He has no idea.

The second he looks up, Baekhyun is cupping his face. Thumbs wipe under his eyes even when he squeezes them closed. He doesn't want to see Baekhyun right now -  e doesn't want Baekhyun to see him. But Baekhyun doesn't let him go. Instead, he lets Chanyeol hiccup and cough and cry until he's too tired to cry anymore. He moves Chanyeol's tired, heavy limbs around and pushes him to lie down with his head in Baekhyun's lap.

Chanyeol can't find it in him to stubbornly push off the comfort. He feels drained. He doesn't want Baekhyun close right now but the hand rubbing up and down his back feels good.

"He was going to _kill_ you _._ There's a dead body somewhere in the city because they were going to kill someone else. Do you understand that? It's not your fault. He made that choice.”

“And he deserved to-to…” Chanyeol can’t make himself say it.

“Yes." And that's it. No explanation, no clarification. Baekhyun decides someone deserves to die and that's it. Chanyeol swallows and tries to think about something else, anything else. He's a little worried he'll throw up if he doesn't.

He waits for one of them to say something else, for Baekhyun to shove him off his lap and leave. Baekhyun starts playing with his hair instead. Strands of Chanyeol's hair are pulled back from his face and braided together. Chanyeol doesn't know if he likes it or not. The hands in his hair are covered in blood. He doesn't think he can forget, but the comfort – he feels guilty about enjoying the comfort.

How many people has Baekhyun killed? How many bullets have the hands in his hair fired and how many of those bullets ended someone's life?

Chanyeol doesn't want to think about it. He's too tired to cry again and if he even tries to imagine all the unsolved murders on Meadow were committed by his soulmate he'll wear himself out. Chanyeol never thought his life would end up like this; he knew murders had to have soulmates but he never thought that he'd be tied to one.

He wants to go home.

"You don't have to lay here if you don't want to," Baekhyun murmurs as the shadows across the room stretch and disappear into the dark. "I understand you're upset with me. You can get up if you need space." Chanyeol twitches. He's just too fucking tired to get up. This has been the longest day in his entire life and he hasn't eaten dinner yet. "Or I can get up if you're tired." Baekhyun laughs when Chanyeol grunts, sliding out from underneath him and setting Chanyeol's head onto the bed.

Chanyeol curls into himself again and lets out a shuddering sigh. He's just so tired. Baekhyun hums from somewhere else in the room but doesn't say anything. Or if he does say something, Chanyeol doesn't hear it.

He closes his eyes for a moment and wakes up to the bedroom door opening. There's a blanket over him he doesn't remember grabbing and the burner phone inches from his face. Jongin is standing in the doorway, illuminated by the hallway light in a way that makes Chanyeol's eyes water. It does absolutely nothing for the low-level headache throbbing in his temples.

"Here," Jongin helps him sit up and hands him two more ibuprofen and a glass of water, "for your arms. Baek'll come in to change your bandages in a little bit and dinner'll probably be ready by then if you're hungry." Chanyeol makes some kind of noise and rubs at his eyes. He gulps down the water and blinks blearily into nothing.

It feels like there's nothing in his head or his chest. Just the empty, heavy space that lingers after a long, hard cry. Jongin waves a hand in front of his face and he just blinks. The world is slowed down, feelings dulled under a heavy fog that fights to pull him back into sleep.

"Remember, this is the worst of it. It's just adjusting from here. Which isn't easy, but it's easier than this." Jongin eases Chanyeol up the bed until he can squirm underneath the covers and rest his head on a pillow. "There you go. Just sleep it off. Things are easier to take when the sun is up, I promise."

He expects Jongin to leave then. But Jongin doesn't. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls out his own phone. "Gonna guess you never used the burner phone and it sounded like you really wanted to call your roommate."

"Don't wanna talk," Chanyeol mumbles and turns over, giving Jongin his back.

"That's fair. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. Not to me, not to Baekhyun, not to anyone. But don't hurt yourself and not call your friend because you're upset."

Chanyeol fists the blankets until his knuckles turn white. He's not _just_ upset. His feelings matter. The fog hiding the full brunt of his emotions is slowly lifting and Chanyeol has to fight down a painful urge to cry again. He really, really wants to cry again. But not in front of Jongin, not when he knows Jongin will run and get Baekhyun.

He's so tired of feeling small.

There's rustling behind Chanyeol but he doesn't turn back over, staring stubbornly into the darkness. Jongin sighs again and the mattress rises as he gets up. "I can't exactly just leave my phone with you because I have – uh – _sensitive_ information on here, but the burner is on the nightstand or you can come and find me if you decide you'd rather use mine."

The bedroom door creaks shut again and Chanyeol rolls over. He's still so goddamn tired, but he’s too awake now, walled off from sleep by pain throbbing in his head and radiating up from his arms. He cries, just a little. There'd be more tears but he doesn't think he has enough water left in his body.

When the tears stop, Chanyeol lays his left arm out flat on the bed and tugs at the bandages close to his wrist. Yixing had covered them up when he bandaged his arm. Chanyeol needs to see them though. He's so angry, so hurt and empty and _tired_ and he just needs something to remind him why he shouldn't use the burner phone and call the cops. He wants to, a little bit. He could go home and pretend that this never happened.

The words still shine in the dark. No scientist has ever figured out why human skin can turn silver and gold and glitter like soulmate words do, but they do. It's beautiful. Even though he's upset, it's still so pretty. He used to dream about the words on his arm glittering like this. It was all he wanted when he woke up this morning – it's still all he wants.

His eyes start to slip closed. The door creaks open and startles him awake. "No, no, it's fine, go back to sleep," Baekhyun's feet shuffle across the floor and a hands takes hold of Chanyeol's. "You had a long day. I'm just gonna change the bandages on your arm and go."

Chanyeol blinks sleepily, watching how the little rays of moonlight reflect off Baekhyun’s hair. Baekhyun settles on the edge of the bed and smiles at him. It looks like a peace offering. Chanyeol grumbles and shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want it.

Baekhyun sighs and starts unwrapping bandages on Chanyeol's left arm. "Can’t really expect you to be all sweet to me, can I? I should've handled things better earlier. When we were in the car. Your feelings _do_ matter to me, even if it doesn't feel like it. Compromise isn't something I'm accustomed to or very fond of – it's important to be the decisive winner in my line of work, you know? But I'll work on it.

"Yifan hasn't terminated your employment at your company yet, by the way. He was gonna have Junmyeon do it by hacking into the files and Junmyeon got mad that we were pulling your entire world out from under you and refused to do it. So we can see if there are any bike routes in my territory you could switch to."

Chanyeol cracks an eye open, chest tightening up and turning light at the same time. It's disorientating; it's not the worst thing though. “Junmyeon sounds cool.” Chanyeol doesn’t mean to, but he smiles just a little. Baekhyun pokes his dimple and laughs under his breath. Baekhyun says Junmyeon is pretty cool. And the air doesn’t feel so heavy.

"There's that smile," Baekhyun murmurs and rubs antibiotic ointment into Chanyeol's arm, shushing him when he whimpers at the sting. He's completely removed from the person who shot another man to death on Meadow, from the man in the car on the ride home. Baekhyun looks younger in the dark.  “I know it hurts but it’s only for a second. It’ll be okay, Chanyeol. You’re okay.”

Chanyeol closes his eyes again and hopes Baekhyun’s right.

* * *

“K’ungsoo,” Chanyeol grumbles as he hobbles out of his bedroom. “Why didn’t you ‘ake me up? I’m gonna be late f’r work.” He stumbles around the kitchen in a blind panic and wonders when Kyungsoo rearranged all the shit in their cabinets. The cups are where the bowls should be and the bowls are literally nowhere to be found. Friday is his day to have an actual breakfast – sugary cereal because he’s essentially twelve years old. How is he supposed to have cereal without a bowl? And it’s mid-morning bright outside, meaning he’s going to have deal with pissed off customers because their packages are going to be late as hell.

Chanyeol bangs his leg into a kitchen chair he doesn’t remember ever buying or helping Kyungsoo carry up. He yelps in pain and sits down on the floor, mind too jumbled to process the sudden rearranging of his entire living space and the pain in his foot at the same time. He goes to grab his foot and rub away the throb and stops. Chanyeol doesn’t remember needing bandages _all over_ his arms.

He peels away the bandages on his right arm and screams because the skin is raw, red and shiny in a way he would very much like it not to be.

Baekhyun runs into the kitchen, pistol drawn and ready in front of him. Chanyeol blinks as the memories of the day before coming rushing in. This isn’t his apartment or an apartment at all. He’s in Baekhyun’s house. Baekhyun, his _soulmate_ , who shot someone in the face and won’t let him go home.

Chanyeol feels like the protagonist of the One Direction fanfiction he used to read in middle school. But much less spunky and much more scared out of his goddamn mind.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says as he drops onto the floor next to him after doing a sweep of the kitchen, “what’s wrong? Why’d you scream? Jesus, it’s eight in the morning, why are you even awake?” He clicks something on his gun and slides it away from them with the barrel facing out. He cups Chanyeol’s face in his hands and rubs at Chanyeol’s cheeks with his thumbs. Chanyeol’s face feels like it’s going up in flames.

“I forgot where I was so I couldn’t find a bowl for cereal and then the chair attacked my foot and _then_ I saw I had bandages on my arms so I peeled them off and freaked out.” It sounds stupid when he says it out loud.

But Baekhyun chuckles and pulls him into a loose hug, calling him ridiculous. “I’m glad you’re okay. I thought something happened to you. Besides the kitchen chair attacking your foot, of course.” Chanyeol decides he likes early morning Baekhyun the most of all the Baekhyuns he’s met so far. Long fingers card through his hair and scratch between his shoulder blades. “Go sit at the table and I’ll grab you some cereal, baby. I don’t keep much sugary stuff here but I’ll see if Jongin’s been hoarding anything.”

Chanyeol clambers into a kitchen chair when Baekhyun lets him go. Not the chair that attacked him though, that thing and its awkward placement can go get fucked. He’s too tired to realize that being upset at an inanimate object is strange nor does he really care. He rests his head on the table and blinks at Baekhyun shuffling around the kitchen.

Chanyeol doesn’t have work today. He doesn’t know when he’ll have work again. But he will, maybe. He remembers falling asleep to Baekhyun murmuring about routes Yifan had just sent him that might work.

“Do you usually wake up this early,” Baekhyun asks after a few minutes. They’re sitting across from each other, Chanyeol sleepily munching his way through a bowl of Fruit Loops and Baekhyun nursing a cup of coffee. He’d asked if Chanyeol wanted any but caffeine makes Chanyeol shaky and anxious. He’s shaky and anxious enough as is.

Chanyeol nods. “Have to for work.” Baekhyun hums and nods. The only sound is Chanyeol’s spoon clanking against the sides of his bowl. He swirls the spoon in circles and watches the rainbow cereal spin in the milk. “Could,” he pauses and bites his tongue. Everything is so stilted between them, so awkward in a way soulmates aren’t supposed to be. Chanyeol wonders if there’s something wrong with them.

There has to be. Soulmates are supposed to be _perfect_ together. His parents never fought where he and Yoora could hear and Kyungsoo’s parents were so much happier when they finally divorced and married their soulmates. And it’s in every goddamn movie, book, and TV show; soulmates are supposed to be easy.

“There’s nothing wrong with us. You know that, right? Things aren’t rainbows and butterflies all the time, relationships take work even when they’re between soulmates. Or maybe especially between soulmates, because they think it’ll all just happen for them.” Chanyeol looks up from his bowl in surprise. Baekhyun stares back over the rim of his mug, a little amused but a little exasperated. “If there’s something bothering you, you have to tell me. If there’s something you want to ask, ask me. I understand I’ve contributed to most of the tension between us, but I can’t make reparations if I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Seems like you’re doing a good job at reading my mind right now.”

Baekhyun laughs. “You just think loud, baby. You broadcast what you’re feeling like a neon sign. It’s a good thing to be that honest. It makes people want to return that honesty. But even if I can read what you’re feeling, I’d like to hear it from you.”

Chanyeol finds himself at a loss. He doesn’t know what he expected from Baekhyun, maybe more aggression or anger, but it wasn’t this calm amusement. Baekhyun wears a lot of faces, has all these different parts of himself. Chanyeol is just Chanyeol. He doesn’t know how to navigate someone who changes personalities and moods in a heartbeat. But Baekhyun wants honesty from him, and honesty is something he does well. “I wanted to know if I could look at the routes Kris sent you.”

It feels like submission. Chanyeol doesn’t know when he really decided to not fight Baekhyun about his job, but asking about the other routes feels like just giving in and submitting to what his soulmate wants. He doesn’t know if he likes it.

But Baekhyun smiles and nods. A phone slides across the table, an email opened up with street names and times. “Pick whichever one you like. I’m gonna go grab more bandages for your arms.” And then gets up from the table and walks away, leaving Chanyeol alone to stare at the phone and wonder when he started giving in so easily.

The rebandaging goes faster this time. The antibiotic ointment still stings but it’s less noticeable when he’s watching Jongin stumble around the kitchen somehow even more confused than Chanyeol had been. Baekhyun snorts when Jongin trips over the same chair Chanyeol had. “Has… Has he never been here before,” Chanyeol whispers when Jongin growls about not being able to find a cup for his coffee.

“He lives here when he’s in town. He’s just nonfunctional in the morning.” Baekhyun adjusts the bandages on Chanyeol’s arm to leave the words visible and stands up again. They both laugh when Jongin climbs onto the counter and lies down, grouching at the world for being so confusing when he’s tired. He – they both seem like normal people for once. It’s strange.

Baekhyun squeezes Chanyeol’s shoulders and smiles all soft and happy. “Come with me for a minute? I just want to show you something.” Chanyeol follows him. It’s either follow him or watch Jongin fall asleep on the counter.

The house isn’t too big but the hallways are confusing and there are so many doors. Baekhyun says they’re all closets for various things, most of them things Chanyeol probably doesn’t want to see. But he shows him the towel closet and the closet for extra sheets and blankets. Chanyeol steals a blanket and wraps it around his shoulders, blushing when Baekhyun calls him cute.

“And this my office. Come in whenever you want as long I’m not in a meeting,” Baekhyun explains as he pushes open the door. “Even then I probably won’t care if you come in. You have free reign of the entire house, actually. I don’t care if you want to snoop around either. I’ve got nothing to hide from you.” Chanyeol shuffles uncomfortably in the doorway. It doesn’t matter what Baekhyun says, this house doesn’t feel like his own and the idea of snooping or just wandering makes him nervous.

“So is this what you wanted to show me?”

Baekhyun pauses and turns, smiling softly. “I didn’t really have anything to show you. I just wanted to spend a little more time with you.” Chanyeol blinks, not sure how to respond. His feelings are all jumbled up, quiet confusion making it hard to differentiate between the million thoughts in his head. But he knows he appreciates how Baekhyun stops a few feet away and gives him space to himself.

“I wanted to apologize for how I handled things yesterday. I thought about it more last night after you fell asleep and I understand that you might feel...powerless right now. It was never my intention to make you feel like that but I very obviously did and I’m sorry.”

Chanyeol watches Baekhyun pace the room, each word carefully sounded out yet sincere. He smiles, the ball of emotion in his chest slowly untangling. God, the apology feels so _good._ Just having his feeling acknowledged and validated makes the tension in his shoulders bleed away.

Baekhyun stops and takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “When it comes to you living here, I can’t budge, but I promise to do my best to not make any decisions like that for you again. This thing between us too,” Baekhyun taps at the silver and gold sparkling on his wrist, “you can set the pace for that, if you want to. I’m not very good at discussing _feelings_ with other people whose feelings actually matter too, so I apologize if it’s a bit awkward.”

Chanyeol smiles wider and takes a few steps forward, just enough to get Baekhyun’s attention and make him look up. “You’re doing pretty good. Thank you. For apologizing and for,” Chanyeol doesn’t know how to say _giving me the high ground on the soulmate thing_ without sounding dumb. So he just smiles and shrugs and hopes that Baekhyun understands. Baekhyun smiles back.

The sun shines in through the windows and makes Baekhyun look – he looks like someone Chanyeol could really, really like.

And the world seems a little kinder, a little easier to deal with, in the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a kudos and a comment! Also feel free to come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/killmeDO), [Tumblr,](http://killmedo.tumblr.com/) or [Curious Cat!](https://curiouscat.me/killmeDO) I'm killmeDO on all of them!


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